Though a couple of safe songs threaten to slow the momentum, the Chicago artist sounds more defiant and grounded than ever on her fourth album.
This past Valentine’s Day, Tink hosted what was essentially a master class on overcoming heartache. At a Morehouse College event in Atlanta, fans lined up with blue baseball bats branded with the Chicago artist’s name and blissfully smashed them against the windshield of a car—just like you might do to a bogus ex’s ride. The whole affair was extremely in character for the 27-year-old rapper and R&B singer, who’s best known for her diaristic, bleeding-heart ballads. And even though she hails from a southern suburb, she’s the quintessential Chicago woman: direct, composed, bossed-up, glamorous but guarded. Her 2022 album, Pillow Talk, was her second full-length collaboration with Empire labelmate and beatmaker Hitmaka. On that record, he phased out the stagnant Timbaland instrumentals that once held her back, bringing a new level of sophistication to the singer’s music. Her latest album, Thanks 4 Nothing, contains Instagram caption-worthy bars, diamond-studded melodies, and smoldering duets, all delivered with poised swagger. Tink’s voice is more potent than ever, her power tucked behind her tongue like razor blades against the tableau vivant of Hitmaka’s lavish, thundering universe.
Over 14 tracks, the singer flows through heartbreak, eventually remembering her worth and finding a graceful sense of self-awareness. A narrative told from the perspective of her shadow side, she excavates the depths of her desires, and refreshingly, never feigns a linear healing arc. Her version of R&B goes beyond confessional and carnal needs—beyond reaching for perfection. On “Toxic,” she admits she’s fallen for someone waving enough red flags to get Chicago’s famed Bud Biliken parade started. An opulent, orchestral string arrangement lays the foundation for Tink to puff her chest as a “real bitch, not industry.” She gains vitality the more she unravels, her raps scorching the earth and clearing ground for healthy life to grow. “Fake Love” demonstrates this superpower to the third degree: “Dipped on me, contradicted everything you claimed to be/Heavy on the mood swings/Speak on how you cuff me to use me.” Here, she’s a sensitive desperado setting her aim on all who attempt to control her. It’s Tink at her bravest, unafraid to demand emotional safety.
But it’s the Chicagoan spirit she shares with her producer that leads to a crucial, heartstopping duet with Ty Dolla $ign called “Let Down My Guard.” Hitmaka assumes the role of a chemist, mixing soft trap percussion into blaring red-light special sirens. Glowing, sliding electric guitar lines accentuate a shared request between lovers: “If I let down my guard, would you give a thug your heart?” The structure evokes the ’00’s and ’90s R&B style of true collaboration, with Ty and Tink singing bar for bar. When Ty cries out, “Girl hold me down, on everything it’s overdue,” the line soothes, if not melts, the scars that come from running cold streets.
Later, Tink’s storytelling shines in her solo track “Gangsta’s Paradise,” in which she crushes on a hustler from the West Side of the city, petitioning to be his fantasy. It’s a side we don’t see much from Tink: She actually believes that the all-in bet she’s placing on her heart will hit. Underneath a spotlight, she reveals her hand, longing for a hectic, intoxicating romance that buds from getting the bag together. Could it get any more P-Valley than that?
Still, there are moments when Tink’s lyrics feel like conceptual misfires. “I’m the Catch” fundamentally works as another flex-on-my-ex coping mechanism, but when she raps about the “dirty-ass women” that her partner “entertains,” it’s hard to empathize. Integrity is supposed to be Tink’s forte; she often cites women’s empowerment as the primary purpose of her music in interviews, so the slippery slope of misogyny that infidelity brings out on this track is challenging to overlook.
It’s clear that the “proudly imperfect” spitfire is no stranger to standing up for herself. Following a three-year stream of acclaimed mixtape and track releases, Tink signed to Timbaland’s Mosley Music Group, an Epic imprint, in 2014. Creative disputes, which included the producer relentlessly projecting Aaliyah’s legacy onto her, would push back the 2015 drop of her debut album, Think Tink. Sadly, the completed album was never released, and the singer eventually parted ways with MMG and Timbaland.
These days, Tink’s autonomy is non-negotiable. While songs like “Someone on You” and “Ain’t Gotta Leave” slow down the record’s momentum with repetitive, safe song structures, they also feel like part of the trademark sound Tink has built for herself (even the first track’s spoken interlude, which echoes her past use of voicemails, feels true to form). She’s proving a point and building her career her way—label heads best move back. Tink is at her most dynamic when she’s having fun being defiant and rejoicing in her unwavering truth. Thanks 4 Nothing is not just Tink’s exhale, it’s her ecstasy, and her vengeance.
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